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Who Needs Friends…

Something strange has happened in Scotland. A transformation of sorts has overturned completely the accepted basis of our politics. Broadly, it went like this.

Whatever the deep and abiding mutual mistrust between Labour and the SNP, and notwithstanding disagreements over the constitution with the Liberals, nevertheless all three parties had a shared policy platform on the centre left. It was variegated of course according to the times, but when there was a showdown over Scotland’s national interest they grudgingly stood together – as in the 1997 referendum. They jointly adopted a default position that was anti-Tory, mirroring the perceived attitudes of the voters. When it came to the preparation for devolution, the SNP did stand outside the constitutional convention (against Alex Salmond’s wishes, I believe) but only because they wanted to go further, not because they were opposed. All the main parties accepted as an article of faith that the Tories did not represent Scotland, were undemocratic in opposing subsidiarity and self-determination and were political lepers to be avoided for fear of ridicule and contamination.

Yet today, this entire construct has been overturned to the extent that Labour and the Liberals are actively encouraging people to vote Conservative rather than SNP. It seems true that Willie Rennie has instructed Liberal councillors not to form working arrangements with Nationalists, preferring Tories instead. Kezia Dugdale sought an artifice to cover her embarrassment by saying no deals should be struck with parties of austerity – define – yet in Aberdeen today it appears her group is going into coalition with Conservatives whom I presume we all agree tend to favour austerity.

The SNP has become the unwanted cur of politics, loathed by all as if it were an infection. Vote for anybody opposed to another referendum is the cry from them all. At all costs we must not give in to democracy and allow the Scots another vote. Nothing else matters. Vote No to the SNP. Vote in a Tory if necessary. They are better than the Nationalists because they will ensure you are denied another shot at deciding your future. Any future is better than independence. Any future.

Yet that future is almost certain to be anything up to 20 years of hard-right, selfish austerity-driven, anti European Britnat ideology, removing powers from Holyrood, shoe-horning Scottish interests into a Little Britain policy portfolio designed to solve the problems of Brexit. And wherever you look those problems are building. Scotland will be disproportionately hit compared to England. Professor Michael Keating warns that what the Liberals and Labour spent decades building, aided by a generation of campaigners for devolution, is now under clear and present threat.

Why can’t they see where this is heading? What is blinding the parties of devolution to the obvious? The Supreme Court ruling made clear how flimsy is the underlying power of Holyrood. What will constrain an all-powerful Theresa May who can claim some sort of Scottish mandate to add to her towering Westminster majority?

I read commentators whose declared preference is devolution/ federalism gloating at the slippage they perceive in SNP support and delighting in signs that a referendum policy isn’t obviously popular. I get it that this is a ‘story’ and it cuts against the grain of the ever rising SNP but they are adding to an exaggerated sense that we don’t need an SNP power base. Who, I ask, is going to protect Scots from what is coming?

For a short-term anti-SNP gain, they are abandoning a consensus that seeks to ameliorate the excesses of Tory policy. But what happens if those powers are simply removed because Brexit has created a national UK emergency in which all decisions and all fund raising has to be centralised?

There is I think a glib discounting of the generational harm Brexit could do to our country. It’s as if people have stopped thinking beyond four weeks hence, as if, after a massive Tory win, we can regroup and think again. Liberals and Labour are playing the Tories’ game, doing their job for them and turning the election into an anti-SNP crusade.

The Liberals position in Scotland is a betrayal of all those people who worked for federalism and made the constitutional convention work. I knew many of them who were ready to countenance independence if London couldn’t deliver meaningful devolution. I fear Wee Willie is made of weaker stuff, desperately touting for Tory Unionist support as the only means of staying in the game but sacrificing Scotland’s national interest to do so.

The truth is they need an SNP to scare London. Nobody in Whitehall is frightened of Willie and his honours-seeking cohorts. But they fear Sturgeon and what she might do. It was London’s fear of the Nationalists – and the Liberals’ and Labour’s fear of their rising support – that drove devolution in the first place. If the day comes when the SNP is neutered, the game is up, not just for Nationalists and independence, but for those who boast of being proud Scots whose aspirations are met by devolved self-government. That is likely to become a shell after a right-wing victory and a hard Brexit.

This is one of those times when certainty disappears and the stars realign. After this election and after say a year of Brexit talks when reality bites, then we might perceive just what a mess we have talked ourselves into. No doubt it will be spun as the SNP’s fault, again. Yet they offer the one escape route which we could be begging for before long. It’s clear though, that, with Labour ruling out a referendum in favour of a Tory Britain (with nuclear weapons) that we Yessers stand alone. There is to be no support of any kind from our former centre-left friends for anything other than Tory-led hard-right politics.

The history has been forgotten. The consensus abandoned. Labour and the Liberals who once engaged in coalition politics, have now positioned themselves as the enemy, siding with Britnat politics at any cost. It makes voting SNP even more imperative after losing one-time friends

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49 thoughts on “Who Needs Friends…”

Let’s face it Labour in Scotland have completely blown it. There’s every chance that after this General Election that Labour will have less MP’s representing Scotland in Westminster that the Liberal Democrats who are already an irrelevance,

Hard to believe that in 2010 Labour sent 41 Mp’s to Westminster, so what has gone wrong?

Quite simple to understand really, Scottish voters now see no difference between them and the Conservative and Unionist party and have voted accordingly. If Ian Murray fails to hold his seat then it’s game over for the current Labour party in Scotland.

No MP’s and no future, that’s what siding with the Tories odes to a party, yet even today we see that Aberdeen council will be a coalition of Tories and Labour. It’s sad really though I’m glad I abandoned such a bunch of no hopers in 2012. Hell mend them that have brought them to this place.

It is entirely possible that the last Labour MP in Scotland will fall, felled not by the nasty SNP but by the Tories. Won’t that be a delicious irony? The SNP might end up with 56 seats again but slightly different ones. Edinburgh Sth is swapped for Mundell’s seat by the Tories, maybe another SLABber gets elected, perhaps in Lanarkshire.

The Yoons celebrate their victories, the Tories are spared the uselessness of Mundell, but when the dust settles all is like it was before.

These so called politicians need to take a long hard look at themselves. Betraying the Scottish electorate and indeed the Scottish people to enable their self centred totally arrogant abuse of their votes. Scottish people take note and make your votes count by voting for the SNP.

It is astounding to think that two of the main driving forces for devolution I.e. Labour and the Lib Dems are both know engaged in a campaign to de-legiitamise one of the most important votes ever taken by Hollyrood. Indeed, as far as these parties are concerned, devolution is fine and dandy providing they are in control.
By their actions of late they have shown that the SNP is in fact facing a de facto Unionist alliance whose hostility to independence suppercedes any other policy issue. Night after night we are confronted with the sight and sound of yet another Unionist politician declaiming that their first policy objective is rejection of another (divisive) independence referendum . Heedless of the fact that the Scottish Parliament has actually already passed a motion calling for one.
This failure to adhere to the lawfully made decisions of the Scottish Parliament can only mean that Davidson, Dugdale and Rennie do not recognise the authority of the Scottish Parliament. A truly disgraceful state of affairs and one that if not swiftly,overturned casts a complete shadow over the future of politics in Scotland.

Yes, I think the thing that annoys Labour and the Liberals most is that they are not driving the car. Devolution was fine because they could claim it as ‘theirs’. As they can’t with independence, and have lost many supporters to the SNP due to their stance, they’ll happily align with the Tories to screw us all. Stupidly, they don’t realise that they don’t drive the anti-indy car either, but are most likely to suffer final extinction from any backlash that may result from the support they are giving the Tory party (which is already stealing what remains of their former voters in droves).

Yes, Labour have learned nothing from getting into bed with the Tories in Better Together and the Liberals have learned nothing from being in coalition with the Tories in WM and their subsequent evisceration.

They were never true devolutionists. It was only to stop the SNP and save their Westminster seats to be used as Lobby fodder.
Now that has gone too. They are parties in dissolution, slowly but surely. A wee flicker of life, a wee upsurge, but it is a downward spiral.
Yoons means yoons! To adapt a quote from MayBot.
That is why the yoons strangled all real proposals to give real powers to Holyrood.
They can never see themselves using these powers now, so the SNP cannae get them Tae!
Trouble is that they are denying Scots real powers.
To support the Tories to get at the SNP is a sign that the yoon parties have really lost the plot.
Why ally with the nastiest when the nastiest are out to destroy you too to make sure there is only one top yoon north of the Tweed.
Time for Labour for Indy to go into overdrive!!

Hate only knows Hate, it’s a disease that infects those that are Racists, half of the voters in Scotland are Racists and most if not all of them are Tories. I called my old friends out when they voted for Bexit last year, when i saw for the first time the Hate xenophobic rhetoric spewing out their mouths, Haters are Racists sitting quietly like a dormant infection waiting for it’s chance. I am not affiliated with any political party, but I will be supporting the Scottish Government for Independence, and hopefully put an end to the intent of the British Empire’s quest to divide and conquer a progressive Scotland with the likes of blatant in your face UNIONIST LIARS.

I still put a lot of the Tory vote down to electionfraud.
How can we be told the result before a vote”s been cast?
The MSM is being manipulated by an Establishment that is still shitting itself after IndyRef 2014.
I expect the GE will be similarly ‘sorted’.
We are truly living in the Orwellian eclipse.

Indeed. I remember saying this to someone a day or so after the locals. The words ‘pass on’ were included deliberately to give her a get-out. Even if one accepts that the SNP ‘pass on’ anything, it’s because the budget has been cut by the Big Boys at Westminster. That being so ordered, some sector up here has to lose out (gallingly, because no-one here voted for that).

The hypocrisy of Labour is sickening (just thinking about the Tories makes me feel ill). They are supposed to be the Opposition at WM so when are they going to get on with the “Day Job” and oppose this vile Tory government with totalitarian tendencies, instead of supinely abstaining or voting with them?

Their vote in favour of the GE is totemic of their total capitulation and lack of guts to Tory politics, as combined they tossed the fixed term parliament legislation to the dustbin of history.

The UK parties always have been and always will be, regardless of the methods used or the consequences for Scotland, anti-independence for Scotland. It baffles me why the McCrone report doesn’t make this crystal clear to most people and, along with how the country has stagnated compared with similar countries, provide enough proof of the need to get away from the dead weight of the UK. .

‘Prof. McCrone, employed at the Scottish Office, passed his report to the new Labour government in April 1975, where he outlined what actions would be necessary to prevent support for the SNP from growing further with the key phrase – “taking the wind out of the SNP’s sails”.

Civil servants met in London to discuss the reports implications. They concluded that his findings had been accurate, and that the average income in Scotland would increase by up to 30% per head if the country became independent.The report was classified as ‘secret’ by civil servants at the time and successive UK Governments kept it so for 30 years, over fears that McCrone’s findings would give a further boost to the SNP’s policy of Scottish independence. The UK civil servants summed up by finding that there was “a good case for the continuation of the Union.”‘

Meanwhile the windfall that was (is) North Sea oil was largely squandered on the dead end of neoliberalism, trying to pretend that the UK is still a global power, and of course individuals seeking personal wealth and privilege. Meanwhile our European neighbours, with or without oil, developed their countries to better suit the modern world while the UK powers that be only wanted to cling to their ‘glorious’ past , even though all that really meant was a seat in house of lords and/or moving through the revolving door to a financial organisation to cash in on their ‘political career’.

The reality for most people is dramatically different – ‘Few realise that three-quarters of the UK is poorer than the EU-15 average, or that its growth performance (at least per head) has been mediocre at best.’

The UK politicians are happy enough to see Scotland dragged down along with rUK as long as they can maintain their publicly stated delusion of a ‘great’ britain, but really it’s just about them trying to become rich and to hell with everyone else. Just look at what Blair, Darling, Brown, Osborne etc etc are doing now. That’s as good an explanation as any for what was meant by the phrase “a good case for the continuation of the Union.”

It is all about naked self-interest and will appeal to voters who are of the same mind. Scotland’s national interest does not figure. It is no accident that those who have done well out of the status quo are those determined to preserve it.

On the whole, society gets the politicians it deserves. In a society which lauds rampant individualism it is hardly surprising we have unprincipled politicians who are not concerned with the national interest of all of Scotland but only with the interests of a particular demographic who will give them their votes. They are the ones creating division because that is how they perceive it. They wish to keep society’s divisions and pull up the drawbridge to keep them. All this talk of the unity of the Union is spurious and actually means the opposite.

We’ve clearly got a hard fight ahead of us, but we knew that. The SNP and other pro-independence parties and groups need to work closely together to beat the Unionists. As Brexit hits the Unionists will panic and we’ll all see that the Tories aren’t wearing any clothes.

Our vote is holding up pretty well after 10 years in power and I’m confident the people of Scotland will tack towards independence as the escape vehicle from an increasingly unhinged UK.

It’s easy to understand why Labour are doing this, because if the SNP are smashed we will all go back to voting Labour and when Labour win in England all will be right and when the Tories get back in at Westminster in a future election they will never dump all that Labour have done, no, not at all, for sure.

Some years ago there was a plane crash at a UK airport. The plane was coming into land but didn’t make the runway. There were quite a few survivors but the odd thing reported by the cabin crew was that even as it became obvious there would be a crash landing passenger refused to give up their food trays, as if going on eating and holding onto the trays gave them comfort.
I think Labour are holding onto some small thing that in their minds give comfort. What it is, I don’t know.

It’s the prospect of honours. Remember the SNP do not accept peerages and a lot of them will not accept MBE’s and the like either.

The last Labour government in NZ stopped British honours and instituted the Order of New Zealand, with grades. Knighthoods were scrapped. People on the Right were outraged and pretty much the first thing the incoming National Party (Tory) government did was reinstate British honours and a pile of their friends and relatives got knighthoods etc.

So NZ has a dual system. IF I was ever offered one I would gladly accept an Order of NZ honour. I would not accept an MBE etc.

After Independence, even if we keep the monarch I can’t see Orders of the British Empire or Member of the British Empire being handed out in iScotland. Can you? These people see this and their dreams of ‘reward’ for their ‘selfless’ service shattered.

You or I might think folk enter public service but a lot do it with at least half a mind on the honours they might garner. It puts them above the hoi polloi, confirms that they are ‘quality people’, or even people of quality. A nation of Hyacinth Buckets prepared to frustrate the aspirations of their nation for baubles. A true parcel of rogues.

There was a referendum and we lost. Three years later and the polls have barely shifted despite UKIP having forced the U.K. to embark on a suicidal course. We voted Remain yet nobody felt that passionate about it. I am canvassing right now and I am not finding folk are that upset about Brexit despite not having voted for it.

I know we Yessers think the 55% are utterly deluded and that the Indy result like Brexit was skewed by relentless propaganda, and sinister forces, but in positioning themselves with the majority who want the UK to remain intact the unionist parties do have a point.

I’m really not sure what more we can do to convince them otherwise.

I think it is a mistake to make the EU an issue, as I don’t think the voters are that bothered about it. But they are bothered about the UK.

Maybe the SNP should get on with the day job – and try to oppose and thwart and highlight all the Tory policies that are destroying our future.

I know. But the yoons take that for granted. What I meant by the day job is fighting the Tory lies and delusions. That message is not getting out. Not blaming the SNP – if they media won’t listen. But that’s now the key issue – being heard.

Agreed re the MSM, misunderstood you there. All I think we can do is take it to the doorstep, There’s an excellent wee booklet “Proud of our achievements” which lays out what the SNP have achieved. I distributed a few thousand as part of the local government elections. Also if you can direct people to the Scottish Government site

or quote the sheer volume of legislation that has been enacted by the Scottish Government since 2011 when they first had a majority government it may (and I stress MAY) get them to realise that the “get on with the day job” rhetoric is just that – words not backed up by reality.

Nothing they have done will be greeted with anything other than contempt derision , it’s just what this lot do like a pack of chimps , and as much use . And to think we actually pay them for the privilege of them taking the piss .

What’s that ubiqitous phrase trotted out for any occasion? Keep calm and carry on? It appears that the MSM have done a splendid job of keeping people lulled into a false sense of security regarding Brexit or indeed any approaching crisis. Sometimes they appear to be sleepwalking into a doubtful future like happy Eloi shepherded by Morlocks.

Well, it might well be the case that they are not particularly worried about leaving the EU because they have not really appreciated what it will mean yet, living in blissful detachment from the actual reality. One day they may say, ” I didnae ken, ” to deserve the stern response, ” Aye, weel, ye ken noo!”

Watch the very recent interview on Independence Live with Craig Murray. He reiterates the point that the UK side in the negotiations is woefully inexperienced. The Tories have even dispensed with the offered services of academics who do, because they are Europeans. I know an Emeritus Prof of Economics with experience in reading complex trade data helping and advising developing world governments. He has offered his expertise and been rebuffed, why? He lives in Scotland. We are a rebel province and not to be trusted.

The negotiations will be a car crash. We don’t have the civil servants with the necessary expertise, our politicians certainly don’t have it and the government has expressly ruled out hiring in the expertise from outside.

We shall apparently try to muddle through. The EU will rip us a new one, run rings around us and we know they will be briefing like mad so we’ll know about it.

We’re in the phony war, the sides are manoeuvring but have not come together. Plans, Napoleon once said do not survive the initial contact of battle. Our plans will crumble to dust. It is feared our leaders have memories of the Armada, of Trafalgar and Waterloo in their minds. It will be worse than Dunkirk. We cannot retreat this time. The medicine cannot be avoided by withdrawal with no deal. We NEED continued access to the regulators or ALL transport to and from the UK will cease. Nothing will be able to be exported and even if we did we couldn’t be paid for it. Imports of important, vital things may cease.

It seems this reality has finally hit home for the Three Brexiteers despite it being told them by experts for months. They apparently hoped something would come up to enable it. Like long vanished British regulators springing fully formed from the peatlands, replete with agreements from the world, including the EU, Oh. Then they wake up.

In time we might do that, but it will be a long and arduous process and America and China will use it to degrade our safety laws. Chlorine washed chicken anyone? Chicken with slight, only slight, heavy metal contamination perhaps? Hormone fed beef? Toys with fire inclined batteries? can’t be blocked by customs any more.

If I ever needed reminding that all unionist parties are toxic this post serves as a very timely wake up call. It is to me at least , absolutely clear that these smug , self centred , egotists serve nobody’s interests but their own. They are prepared to watch Scotland burn for a gong or an ermine robe, unfortunately for them Scotland will not go back in to its wee colonial shortbread tin now or ever.

With rumours of May planning a power grab after the general election in June to hobble the Scottish Parliament it looks like a grim battle ahead of us. Which, of course, is what the Tories want – the SNP against the Tories. All they want is Scotland’s resources – nothing more than that, and the people of Scotland are to be collateral damage in their determination to keep a grip on Scotland while we sail into a grim future, out of the EU and under a dark future of Tory control.

Seems the LibDem and Labour branches in Scotland haven’t the strength or the will to stand up to the Tories. Where did their courage go? Are they so susceptible to Tory promises and so desperate for a purpose that they’ll roll over and do the Tories’ bidding, despite also knowing that the Tories are as likely as not to drop them in it afterwards? Haven’t they learned that the Tories are just using them for their own ends?

Ruth Davidson never talks about Tory policies if she can possibly help it, which is why we must step up our determination to spell out what Tory policies mean to Scotland. You’ll see under the Twitter hashtag #WomenStandAgainstTories that women are taking Tory policies to the streets and spelling them out. You’d be surprised, for instance, how many people don’t know about the rape clause and the child credit cap. They don’t know because what they read in most of the Scottish print media is a Tory / Labour / LibDem anti-SNP theme and not an analysis of each party’s policies and what they mean for Scotland.

It’s the grass roots who will win this. The Scottish branches of the Tory and Labour parties don’t have the numbers on the ground – they have to bus them in from down south. We will do this.

I feel that with all that has happened the yes vote should be showing 70 plus in the polls. The fact that it isn’t tells you something about the brainwashed and defeated Scots. Many people just despair , or they get angry for a week and then let it slide.

The Yes voters get angry and stay angry about how Scotland is treated. They want to change it ,not just accept it. Had the referendum happened a couple of days after the Brexit vote we would have won 60/40. This is our problem. Unionists or ambivalent Scots are good at moaning but not good at grasping opportunity for change. The longer things drag on the more they become normalised in peoples heads.

Brexit has now become normalised and accepted ,despite every constituency in Scotland voting against it. In any normal country there would be street protests and profound anger. The fact that Scots haven’t protested in the streets,tells a lot about the absolute utter brainwashing from birth to old age that Scots suffer. It’s a zombie nation intoxicated with a serial lack of self confidence and any sense of self worth.

If someone is in a coma. They are trapped in a state of unconsciousness. Everything that happens in the world outside is beyond their control. That’s how the average unionist Scot lives. Other people decide their futures. The other people might even decide to turn off the life support and the victim is helpless to stop it.

It’s hard not to despair. I am alive but surrounded by people who are merely breathing.

Agreed , this clinging to a union most normal people know has never worked for us , the very word UNION makes no sense , it’s an occupation as we have no say in its direction of travel , How anyone can in all honestly say it’s to our benefit to remain needs their bumps read , closing eyes and the hands over the ears won’t make it right, however much these people want it , People mostly dont like change but how bad does it have to get before they waken up .

you’re probably right jock, it’s depressing listening to how little ,and probably whats worse how wrong they are on simple things ,like this long debunked you will have to use the euro guff , you instinctively know when it’s explained to them ,then the eyes glaze over , i always thought most scots were reasonably intelligent , by christ have my eyes been opened over the last few years , its baffling .
must be something thats been added to the drinking water , soluble stupidity .

UK institutions need to accept that there are many worse things than a peaceful
break-up of the Union. The Union is simply not worth defending as an absolute good.
Worse than a break-up would be to preserve a reluctant Union by use of institutional
power. That would end up undermining the legitimacy of government in all parts of Great
Britain. If the Union is not based on the consent of its members, freely given, it has lost not
just its legitimacy but also its raison d’être.

So frustrating, agitating and downright strength sapping to try and understand what goes on in the mindset of those against Scotland running its own affairs…my god,what a radical, revolutionary concept aspiring to be self governing…after all,that’s happened with brexit, tessy May in the wings waiting for,her mandate to control everything in her precious union, the polls have shown practically zilch increase for independence..that’s so disheartening…..there needs to be a realignment to balance out the mainly unionist oap vote, and the youth/middle age voters who are less likely to be registered or actually make the effort to visit the polling station when it really matters…more needs to be done at college, Uni, and,further education facilities to maximise the message of indy being crucial for,the survival of our country..nothing less……also once the triple lock and heating allowances kick in, some might question their allegiances …doubt it though….BBC,monarchy too entrenched for clarity of thought….

Don’t worry or be so defeatist. They can hid from reality, but they can’t hide from the consequences of reality. Brexit hasn’t happened yet. You have nice house, you have a nice job, why rock the boat. You lose that house and job – you go looking for the people responsible. It’s good that the Tories will have a face in Scotland when that happens.

we had yesterday Kezia Dugdale on SKY news , advocating vote tory in some seats to stop the SNP , we have today on wings over scotland a selection of different parties promoting themselves as the only party to stop the SNP , a pattern developing , STOP the SNP doing exactly what ? , being the only credible opposition to the tories at westminster , well now that is a strange stance for any party , other than for the tories to take , it’s like a 10 team football league with 9 teams wearing the same strip .
Scottish politics rotten to the core with self interest , and bugger the people who are stupid enough to vote

Labour and LibDem yoons, be careful who you switch votes for! Remember better together and its aftermath. Now that the Tory manifesto from the cess pit has emerged, watch out!
As Corbyn is catching up dahn sath, if the yoons silly antics prop up May, then yoonery is over!!
The Tories are not the nasty party, they are the nastiest!!
The SNP baaad tactic will back fire in more ways than one in the short and long term on the non-tory yoons!!
You have been warned!!
If Corbyn wins, just think, he is committed to Brexit too!!! And Scotland voted to remain!!
The SNP are on target to get the maximum number of seats in Scotland, local election returns indicate this. Yoonery is being propped up by an ageing population who remember WWII and the early 50’s, who did national service and were stationed overseas with BFPO addresses and listened to Sunday radio for a message.
As the Labour party in Scotland is gushing its political entrails all over the place, and the LieDems squeek into insignificance and the Tories under Ruth come a poor second, watch for the real transformation in the Scots body politic.
One final message to the yoonery who have this nostalgia for old blighty, the NHS was set up then and opposed by the Tories. May and her atlanticists are out to destroy it. Be careful who you vote for.